Bush Iraq Speech "Truth-o-lator" Translation Key

This is a first attempt at a Translation Key to allow someone to hear or read a speech on Iraq by "President" Bush and understand what he really means.

When Bush says                  You should read/hear
--------------                  -------------------
citizens                        capitalists
democracy                       capitalism
reform                          capitalism
democratic                      captialist
democratic reformers            capitalist lackeys
America/American people         global business/global business interests
Americans                       capitalist dupes
terrorists                      poor people   (thanks to: Arundhati Roy)
constitutional                  puppet
unity government                puppet governmnet
unity                           U.S. control
constitution                    U.S. client state trade agreement
freedom                         submission to business interests
freedom of speech/free speech   control of the media
free                            submissive
war on terror                   U.S war for domination
civil war                       U.S. defeat  (match case)
infiltrate                      help
enemy                           anti-occupation movement
brutality                       needs
liberation                      submission to U.S. force
al Qaeda                        "the Grand Lie" (optional)
totalitarian                    different
violence                        self-determination
instability                     freedom from U.S. domination
peace                           U.S. domination
savage                          detemined
sovereign                       client
sovereignty                     client statehood
reconstruction                  corporate giveaway contracts
military                        occupation forces (optional)
Iraqi Security Forces           Iraqi Low-Intensity Confilict Forces
Coalition                       Occupation
commanders                      war directors
hateful                         different
liberty                         chance to exploit
securtiy                        submissiveness
stability                       friendliness toward exploitation
fair                            unfair
insurgents                      anti-occupation fighters

Let's look at how this works with some exerpts from a Bush Speech from Tuesday , June 28, 2005.

Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting down the poor people. We are helping Iraqis build a submissive nation that is an ally in the U.S war for global domination. We are advancing submission to business interests in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of self-determination and freedom from U.S. domination — and laying the foundation of U.S. domination for our children and our grandchildren.
...
A little over a year ago, I spoke to the Nation and described our Occupation's goal in Iraq. I said that America's mission in Iraq is to defeat an anti-occupation movement and give strength to a friend — a submissive, representative government that is an ally in the U.S war for global domination, and a beacon of hope in a part of the world that is desperate for capitalism. I outlined the steps we would take to achieve this goal: We would hand authority over to a client Iraqi government … we would help Iraqis hold submissive elections by January 2005 … we would continue helping Iraqis rebuild their nation's infrastructure and economy … we would encourage more international support for Iraq's captialist transition … and we would enable Iraqis to take increasing responsibility for their own submissiveness and friendliness toward exploitation.
...
In the past year, we have made significant progress:

One year ago today, we restored client statehood to the Iraqi people.

In January 2005, more than eight million Iraqi men and women voted in elections that were submissive and unfair — and took place on time.
...
Finally, we have continued our efforts to equip and train Iraqi Low-Intensity Confilict Forces. We have made gains in both the number and quality of those forces. Today Iraq has more than 160,000 submissiveness forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions. Iraqi forces have fought bravely — helping to capture poor people and anti-occupation fighters in Najaf, Samarra, Fallujah, and Mosul. And in the past month, Iraqi forces have led a major anti-poor people campaign in Baghdad called Operation Lightning — which has led to the capture of hundreds of suspected anti-occupation fighters.
...
The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the poor people — and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the poor people, our military helping to train Iraqi Low-Intensity Confilict Forces so that they can defend their people and fight the anti-occupation movement on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.
...
We have made progress — but we have a lot more work to do. Today Iraqi Low-Intensity Confilict Forces are at different levels of readiness. Some are capable of taking on the poor people and anti-occupation fighters by themselves. A larger number can plan and execute anti-poor people operations with Occupation support. The rest are forming and not yet ready to participate fully in submissiveness operations. Our task is to make the Iraqi units fully capable and independent. We are building up Iraqi Low-Intensity Confilict Forces as quickly as possible, so they can assume the lead in defeating the poor people and anti-occupation fighters.
...
Our Occupation is devoting considerable resources and manpower to this critical task. Thousands of Occupation troops are involved in the training and equipping of Iraqi Low-Intensity Confilict Forces. NATO is establishing a military academy near Baghdad to train the next generation of Iraqi military leaders — and 17 nations are contributing troops to the NATO training mission. Iraqi Army and Police are being trained by personnel from Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Romania, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Today dozens of nations are working toward a common objective: an Iraq that can defend itself, defeat its enemies, and secure its submission to business interests.
...
After a U.S. client state trade agreement is written, the Iraqi people will have a chance to vote on it. If approved, Iraqis will go to the polls again, to elect a new government under their new, permanent U.S. client state trade agreement. By taking these critical steps and meeting their deadlines, Iraqis will bind their multiethnic society together in a capitalism that respects the will of the majority and protects minority rights.

As Iraqis grow confident that the captialist progress they are making is real and permanent, more will join the political process. And as Iraqis see that their military can protect them, more will step forward with vital intelligence to help defeat the enemies of a submissive Iraq. The combination of political and military capitalism will lay a solid foundation for a submissive and stable Iraq.

As Iraqis make progress toward a submissive society, the effects are being felt beyond Iraq's borders. Before our Occupation liberated Iraq, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons. Today the leader of Libya has given up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs. Across the broader Middle East, people are claiming their submission to business interests. In the last few months, we have witnessed elections in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon. These elections are inspiring capitalist lackeys in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Our strategy to defend ourselves and spread submission to business interests is working. The rise of submission to business interests in this vital region will eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder — and make our Nation safer.

We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America's resolve. We are fighting against men with blind hatred — and armed with lethal weapons — who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in Iraq — just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail. The poor people do not understand global business interests. The global business interests do not falter under threat — and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins.

Global business interests and our friends are in a conflict that demands much of us. It demands the courage of our fighting men and women … it demands the steadfastness of our allies … and it demands the perseverance of our capitalists. We accept these burdens — because we know what is at stake. We fight today, because Iraq now carries the hope of submission to business interests in a vital region of the world — and the rise of capitalism will be the ultimate triumph over radicalism and terror. And we fight today because poor people want to attack our country and kill our capitalists — and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we will fight them there … we will fight them across the world — and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.
...
Thank you. And may God bless global business.

It seems to work fairly well. It isn't foolproof by any stretch, but still, it is a fun experiment.

Cheers.

Effects of the War in Iraq on the Troops

I heard a report this past week on the upcoming "Baghdad ER" documentary to be aired on HBO this Sunday (today). While I don't have cable, and hence won't be able to watch it until it comes out on DVD, I was very affected by this report on the broadcast.

It was a report on Democracy Now! The transcript is available here, but if you can, you should really listen to the story via a link on the same page. It includes not only an interview with the documentarian, John Alpert, but also with Dr. James Hill, a doctor who worked a grueling year in at the Combat Support Hospital in Iraq. Also interviewed was Paula Zwillinger, whose son, a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps, was killed in Iraq in June of 2005.

The story was deeply moving. The audio of doctors slogging through amputation after amputation, death after death, and yes, sometimes winning some but always having to face the prospect of patients dying or irreparably damaged, got to me; as did the sadness of Paula Zwillinger having the opportunity to see, on film, after being contacted by Alpert, the last moments of her son's life when the doctors in the combat hospital could not save him. If you have a chance to watch the HBO documentary, do.

The other story I encountered was in the recent Rolling Stone Magazine. It was in the May 4 edition and it was entitled "The Hole Where Sgt. Thorne's Life Used to Be." This story covered the brain injury and attempts at recovery of a US Army Recon Scout who had a third of his head blown off in Iraq and still managed to survive. It's a tragic story that contains, almost as a side note, some disturbing information about the frequency of low-level cumulative brain injury of troops that goes undetected -- for now -- and allows for soldiers to be sent back into service ready to be re-injured once again. Apparently, these kinds of injuries, from proximity to explosions that knock troops down or out, but leave no immediate effects of concussion or other signs of damage, are more widespread than anyone, especially the Army, is willing to admit.

All of this gets me thinking about the troops in Iraq, what's to become of them, who really cares, and what the Left is doing about it now. I was in the Army at one time. I was in a combat arms unit, but it was not in a time of war, so, thankfully, I saw no combat and was never required to actually shoot at anyone. Nevertheless, I do know something about, and have first hand experience of, the military, how it works, and troop morale.

A cursory search of Google on the words "Iraq troop morale" for sites changed in the past 3 months returns precious little recent information on troop morale, but I can't imagine it can be good. The military tends to reflect the attitudes of the larger population and as Bush's approval ratings go down to sub-30% levels on his conduct of the war in Iraq, this has to be having an effect on the attitude of the average grunt concerning their commanders from the President on down.

According to a recent Zogby Poll "72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately." On the other hand, further reading of the poll results indicates some muddled thinking on the part of the forces serving:

The wide-ranging poll also shows that 58% of those serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in their minds, while 42% said it is either somewhat or very unclear to them, that they have no understanding of it at all, or are unsure. While 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly to "retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was "to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq."

Clearly, there's going to be hell to pay for commanders and for the Bush administration, as more and more troops realize, however slowly over time, that they have been sold a bill of goods as to the actual reasons for the invasion of Iraq and that the US is not pulling out any time soon, certainly not in the next year.

And what's the Left doing about this? I have found a few good things. Largely it seems to center around "bring the troops home" themes. See the Bring Them Home Now website, for example. But I can find scant little on Leftist concerns about the troops, their lives, how their families are affected, etc. This despite the fact that Cindy Sheehan seems to be in the news on almost a weekly basis. There is plenty about the families at Gold Star Families for Peace, but not much about the troops themselves.

Why is this? Could it have to do with the fact that most of the troops come from working class roots and the US Left has slowly yet increasingly divorced itself from the concerns of working class people over the course of the last four decades? This seems to me the main problem. Until the Left gets back to its working class roots, the problems of people like combat troops will be at best an abstraction, at worst, ignored.

The Yes Men: Another Anti-Corporate Prank

In this era of cut-throat capitalism imposing it's imperial will the world over with an ominous seriousness that breeds equally serious response on the part of the responsible, sometimes a little levity, a smattering of irony and sarcasm, is just the ticket to get us back on track. That's why I love the Yes Men.

Democracy Now! yesterday had a great story about the Yes Men's latest prank, which takes aim at Haliburton. You can listen to the story via Real Player here. Check out the fake Halliburton website that got them into the LexisNexis sponsored "Catastrophic Loss" conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida.

You Can Fight City Hall, but You Can't Fight Demographics

Immigration and demographics are issues that will drive U.S. politics for the next few years. What we are seeing are the last, dying gasps of a populace that is aware of the fading of it's former imperial whiteness. Covert-racist ideological flailing will continue until the voices of the intolerant are gradually overwhelmed by the inevitable demographic shifts that will see the browning of the U.S. over the next two decades. Why wait? Start seeing that your children learn another language now. Americans have always been poor learners when it comes to other languages and cultures. Do something about it. Consider picking up some Spanish.